all hearthfires & holocausts

Posted at The Midnight Garden:As most of you probably know, Wendy is our resident zombie / horror lover, while I'm more likely to be found cowering under the blankets because I saw thirty seconds of a horror movie trailer. Three hours ago. So when I read the summary for Reboot by Amy Tintera, I thought, "sentient zombies? I can totally handle that."And I was half right. It wasn't scary at all, but I don't think my initial assessment was all that accurate. Reboots aren't zombie-like in the least. Well. At least, not when normally.When the KDH virus swept through the population, people began dropping like flies. Except... they didn't stay dead. Their bodies rebooted (heh, get it?) after death, coming back stronger, faster, healthier--a more perfect version of their previous selves. And, naturally, the government used this to their advantage, rounding up all the Reboots and training them to be super soldiers, keeping the peace and the boundary lines, to keep the virus from infecting the larger population. Wren is the strongest Reboot in her facility, having been dead a whopping 178 minutes before rebooting. Though she's the smallest, she's faster, stronger, and more ruthless than any of the others. And colder, too. Being dead so long means she feels less. Or so she thinks, until she is given a new recruit to train--Callum, a lowly 22, who has no skill and even less taste for the violence that is now his job, and the only reason he's allowed to live. When Callum's life is threatened, Wren must choose between the safety of the only life she can remember, and the possibility of a better life beyond the walls of the HARC facility.What I liked:It was a fun, fast-paced read. I liked that the smallest girl was the strongest, and the most respected--if feared. I liked that Wren was decisive and assertive, but still soft and vulnerable enough to feel human and relatable. The new twist on the post-apocalyptic genre was great, and the foreshadowing of greater zombie-esque things to come definitely has me intrigued.Things I Wished Were Better:I wished for more set up, and less romance in this one. (This is very out of character for me, heh.) While I liked Callum, his quippy personality quickly became over the top and out of place, and his constant fumbling was very annoying. In some scenes, it felt as though his only purpose was to show how strong and capable Wren was in comparison. I never entirely understood his and Wren's attraction to one another. It came out of nowhere, and they seemed to act on it in the oddest of moments. Perhaps immediately following a firefight, and while still recovering from third degree burns isn't the best time for a make out, eh kids? Ah, hormones...All in all, a good start to what I hope is a very interesting series.